Unlike Pascal, the characters in J.M.G. Le Clézio's second collection of short stories [Mondo et autres histoires] are not frightened by the silence of infinite spaces. Rather, they seek it in the sea and the sky and find in it a cosmic freedom, a sense of belonging to the universe that is unfettered by the constraints of civilization. Jon, the boy of "La montagne du dieu vivant," who experiences the infinite most intensely atop a mountain in the company of a mysterious shepherd boy, feels only limitless solitude on his return to the world of men. For Le Clézio, man has regrettably narrowed the universe to fit his own needs and desires. His major characters, all of whom are children in this collection, feel the need to escape from such a limiting and confining world, and this forms the unifying theme of these stories (as well as an important theme of Le Clézio's entire fiction)….

Intimacy with the universe has provided [Le Clézio's young characters] with their salvation,… [but] their reintegration into the world of men can never be complete. As young mystics among men, they will continue to be the link between the human race and the universe.